In particular joints of a vehicle's suspension structure, stiffness and rigidity is desirable. One position where stiffness is desired is within the connection between the vehicle's rear sub-frame and the remainder of the vehicle body. Lack of stiffness in this joint is caused by the multi-component structure of the vehicle body adjacent to the connection point. Namely, the vehicle body is made of a combination of a sub-frame mounting bracket and a two part frame, the two parts being spaced apart and reinforced typically by a box-shaped internal bulkhead, as shown in FIGS. 2-4. In some vehicles, all of these parts are connected using a mounting pin which is projection welded to the sub-frame mounting bracket near the bottom of the pin (shown as crossed ovals) and MIG welded to the box-shaped internal bulkhead at the top of the pin. The box-shaped bulkhead is then welded to the upper part of the frame to complete the structure. Many welds are required to secure the joint. Namely, as illustrated in FIG. 2, the fore box bulkhead is spot welded (represented by black spots) to the frame in 12 places and the aft box bulkhead (not shown) in 10 places (FIG. 3 also shows typical weld positions on the fore bulkhead). Two MIG welds (open circles) are used to attach each bulkhead to each mounting pin.
In another vehicle joint configuration (not illustrated), the mounting pin is a through-pin that is used to directly connect the sub-frame mounting bracket to the upper part of the frame, but does not utilize any type of bulkhead. However, neither of these configurations provides a joint that is overly stiff and many welds are required to form the complete joint. What is desired is an apparatus that provides increased stiffness in fore/aft, lateral, and vertical directions in the vehicle body adjacent to the sub-frame connection point and that is simply installed with fewer welds.